Monday, October 17, 2005

Founding Fathers


Conservatives who are so fond of strict constitutional interpretation in the manner of our Founding Fathers, would do well (when considering judicial nominations) to consider Federalist Paper No. 76, which says in part:

"It will readily be comprehended, that a man who had himself the sole disposition of offices, would be governed much more by his private inclinations and interests, than when he was bound to submit the propriety of his choice to the discussion and determination of a different and independent body, and that body an entire branch of the legislature. The possibility of rejection would be a strong motive to care in proposing. The danger to his own reputation, and, in the case of an elective magistrate, to his political existence, from betraying a spirit of favoritism, or an unbecoming pursuit of popularity, to the observation of a body whose opinion would have great weight in forming that of the public, could not fail to operate as a barrier to the one and to the other. He would be both ashamed and afraid to bring forward, for the most distinguished or lucrative stations, candidates who had no other merit than that of coming from the same State to which he particularly belonged, or of being in some way or other personally allied to him, or of possessing the necessary insignificance and pliancy to render them the obsequious instruments of his pleasure." -Federalist Papers No. 76

There is a great possibility that Harriet Miers will be an obsequious instrument of George Bush's pleasure.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home